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Polish American

 
US History Encyclopedia: Polish Americans
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By the mid-1700s Poland, once one of the largest and among the most powerful states in Europe, had succumbed to its own decentralized political structure and its neighbors' ambitions. By century's end, Prussia, Russia, and Austria had conquered and partitioned the country, thrusting each partition onto its own separate path from semifeudal agrarianism to modernized, commercial agriculture.

Early Immigration

Polish society was neither static nor self-contained. In 1608, a few itinerant Polish artisans became America's first Polish settlers when they joined the Jamestown colony. Recruited to produce soap, tar, and pitch, they left their mark on Virginia political history by resisting a 1619 attempt by the House of Burgesses to disenfranchise them. Protestant "Polanders" also had settled in colonial New Amsterdam and in Pennsylvania. The American Revolution also benefited from a few talented Polish nobles of democratic sympathies, like General Casimir Pulaski ("Father of the American Cavalry"), who was slain at the Battle of Savannah (1779), and General Thaddeus Ko[UNK]ciuszko, a military engineer whose fortifications contributed decisively to the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga (1777). Kos[UNK]ciuszko also wrote the first U.S. army artillery manual. Ko[UNK]ciuszko's will, eventually superseded, bequeathed his American estate to free and educate African American slaves. Although numerically insignificant, these early Polish arrivals established later Polish immigrants' claims to authenticity as Americans.

Polish settlement in the United States became numerically noteworthy only after the 1830s, when scattered veterans of a succession of failed Polish insurrections against foreign rule fled to the United States during Europe's "Springtime of Nations." Even then, this "Great Emigration" only numbered a thousand or so individuals who dispersed widely and assimilated easily, although it did establish the first Polish American periodicals, literary societies, and the political groups that laid the groundwork for a Polish nationalist movement in the United States. Nationalist aspirations knit Poles together at home and abroad, but concurrently raised divisive issues. Although the majority of their inhabitants were Roman Catholics and ethnic Poles, the Polish partitions contained sizeable ethnic minorities—Jews, Ukrainians, and Germans. Polish nationalists debated whether Polish identity would be pluralistic, civic, and secular, or based on ethnicity and religion.

Years of Mass Migration

With the gradual capitalist transformation and "modernization" of the Polish countryside after the 1850s, Polish immigration to the United States (and elsewhere) increased. Author and Nobel laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz (1905) remarked that Poles came "in search of bread and freedom," but the majority probably came more for economic reasons. The Polish mass migration "for bread" (za chlebem) brought about 2.5 million ethnic Poles (including regional subgroups like the Kashubes and the Górale, or Tatra highlanders) to the United States from the 1850 to 1920. (This figure includes 434,000 "German Poles" from the German-held Polish partition, who came primarily from 1850 to 1900; 800,000 "Austrian Poles" from the Austrian-held Polish partition, who arrived between 1880 and 1920; and 805,000 "Russian Poles" from the Russian-held Polish partition, who immigrated from 1890 to 1920). Up to 30 percent of the Austrian and Russian Poles did not remain in the United States, returning to their land of origin. Although the immigrants included Poles of all classes, most had rural, typically peasant, backgrounds, were young, disproportionately male, and unmarried. Immigrant Poles entered many occupations including farming (a mere 10 percent), shopkeeping, the professions, skilled labor, and the arts; but fully 80 percent took semiskilled and unskilled jobs in mass production and heavy industry—coal mining, oil refining, steelmaking, meatpacking, and textiles, electrical goods, and auto manufacture.

Community Building

Rural Panna Maria, Texas, generally is recognized as the first Polish settlement (1854) of the era of the peasant mass migration, but most Poles settled in northeastern and midwestern towns and cities. (Chicago had the second largest Polish population of any city; only Warsaw boasted greater numbers of Poles.) Polish immigrants concentrated in the industrial belt that extended from Boston to Philadelphia and westward across New York and Pennsylvania, through Pittsburgh, northern Ohio, and northern Indiana, to Chicago and Milwaukee. Social dislocations they experienced were amply documented in William I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918–1920), the classic work of the "Chicago school" of sociology. Nevertheless, the Polish immigrant community—"Polonia" (Latin for Poland), as these enclaves individually and collectively were known—became vital centers of immigrant social life, with immigrant small businesses, press, theater, and a network of athletic, cultural, political, and fraternal benevolent associations. The heart of Polonia, however, was its Polish Roman Catholic parishes, (peaking at over 800 in the 1930s). With many established by the Polish Resurrectionist order, these parishes (with their parochial schools and teaching nuns like the Felicians) provided cradle-to-grave social services, encapsulated immigrant spiritual and aesthetic life (best merged, perhaps, in images of Our Lady of C[UNK]stochowa, Poland's "Black Madonna") and (with the largest numbering over 40,000 parishioners) gave rise to Polonia's first great leaders, priests like Chicago's Rev. Wincenty Barzy[UNK]ski, C.R.

Religious and Political Affairs

During the years of mass migration, Polonia's main rival fraternal organizations, the secularist Polish National Alliance (1880) and the religionist Polish Roman Catholic Union (1873), argued and then compromised on Polish American ethnic identity: Polish and Roman Catholic. The linkage of Roman Catholicism and Polishness (Polsko[UNK][UNK]) increasingly influenced nationalist politics in Poland into the twentieth century. Insurrectionary veteran Rev. Joseph D[UNK]browski established a Polish Roman Catholic seminary in Detroit in 1883 to provide a patriotic ethnic clergy, while other Poles, led by Rev. Wenceslaus Kruszka, argued for representation and equality within the heavily Irish church hierarchy, succeeding modestly with the consecration of Paul Rhode as the first Polish American Roman Catholic bishop (1908). Immigrant religious participation was not without contention. Between the 1890s and 1920s, immigrant lay-trusteeism and Polish nationalism produced the most important schism yet to rock American Roman Catholicism, climaxing in the 1904 founding of the Polish National Catholic Church by Scranton, Pennsylvania, priest Francis Hodur. Following World War I, the Polish nationalist movement also achieved its central goal, as pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski and others won the support of the administration of President Woodrow Wilson for the reestablishment of a united, sovereign, independent Poland. Poland came into being again in 1918, with its existence confirmed by the Treaty of Versailles (1919).

Involved in the Progressive Era's labor movement and radical politics (a Polish anarchist, Leon Czolgosz, assassinated President William McKinley in 1901), Polish workers played a key role in the 1930s and 1940s in the rise of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and other mass production unions associated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations. In the heroic 1935–1937 period, Poles and other Slavs were fully a quarter of the membership. Polish Americans overwhelmingly supported President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic Party in the 1930s, a loyalty shaken by the Yalta Agreement (1945) which, after World War II, stripped Poland of territory, left it a Soviet satellite, and gave rise to fifty years of Polish American anticommunism championed by Polonia's new umbrella political body, the Polish American Congress (1944).

Post–world War II Migration

After World War II, new waves of immigrants from Poland reshaped the Polish presence in the United States. Between 1945 and 1956, over 190,000 political exiles and displaced persons came to the United States. From 1965 to 1990, about 178,000 entered after the liberalization of Polish migration policies (1956), political crackdowns in Poland (1968), and passage of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. During the same period roughly 957,000 nonimmigrant temporary visitors came, many of whom stayed and obtained work. Between 1983 and 1990, about 35,000 entered; these were political refugees from the Solidarity (Solidarno[UNK][UNK]) movement, the Polish trade union movement and democratization campaign. Census figures for 2000 estimate the Polish American population (persons either from Poland or identifying Polish as a principal ancestry) at about 9 million, or about 3.3 percent of the national total. The states with the largest Polish American population are New York (958,893), Illinois (946,241), and Michigan (900,335). Other states with sizeable Polish American populations include Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio, Wisconsin, California, and Florida. The large Polish American presence in California and Florida resulted from late-twentieth-century secondary migrations.

Contemporary Polish America

As an ethnic group, Polish Americans experienced mixed fortunes in America after World War II. With a high rate of home ownership, older urban Polonias tended to remain in place despite changing urban racial composition. Nonetheless suburban out-migration, intermarriage, language loss, assimilation, and upward mobility have undercut ethnic group numbers and identification. Polish Americans have moved into managerial, professional, and technical occupations, while the mass marketing of such traditional Polish food items like p[UNK]czki (doughnuts) and pierogi (filled dumplings) symbolized their cultural "arrival." The white ethnic revival of the late 1960s heightened ethnic consciousness for some Polish Americans who also felt considerable ethnic pride when Karol Cardinal Wojty[UNK]a became the first Polish pope, John Paul II (1978), and Solidarity leader Lech W[UNK][UNK]sa led a non-violent revolution for democracy in Poland in the early 1980s. Polish Americans who have attained national recognition in contemporary American culture include television actress Loretta Swit (M*A*S*H), athletic figures like basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski and baseball star Stan "The Man" Musial, homemaking doyenne Martha Stewart (neé Kostyra), and émigré Nobel laureate Czes[UNK]aw Mi[UNK]osz.

Despite such successes, Polish Americans continue to score low in "social status" rankings owing to persistent anti-Polish stereotyping, particularly in the media, which has inspired antidefamation campaigns. Contemporary Polish American politics also have focused on cultural survival issues, Polish membership in NATO (achieved in 1999), relations with post-socialist Poland, and improvement in Polish-Jewish relations, historically a difficult issue. In postwar national politics, Polish American visibility peaked when Maine Senator Edmund Muskie (Marciszewski) won the Democratic Party vice presidential nomination (1968) and Zbigniew Brzezinski was named as President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser (1976); but "realigned" Polish American voters increasingly voted for Republican candidates after 1968. In the opening years of the twenty-first century, the most prominent Polish-American political figure was Senator Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.).

Besides the older fraternal associations, the principal Polish American organizations today include the Polish American Congress, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America and the Kos´ciuszko Foundation (both in New York City), the Polish Museum of America (Chicago), the Polish American Historical Association, the American Council for Polish Culture, the Polish American Journal (Buffalo, N.Y.), the Polish Genealogical Society of America, and St. Mary's College of Ave Maria University (Orchard Lake, Michigan). Contemporary Polish American writers include Anthony Bukoski, Stuart Dybek, Gary Gildner, Leslie Pietrzyk, and Suzanne Strempek Shea.

Bibliography

Bukowczyk, John J. And My Children Did Not Know Me: A History of the Polish Americans. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Bukowczyk, John J., ed. Polish Americans and Their History: Community, Culture, and Politics. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.

Davies, Norman. God's Playground: A History of Poland. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.

Greene, Victor. "Poles." In Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, edited by Stephan Thernstrom. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980.

Gladsky, Thomas S. Princes, Peasants, and Other Polish Selves: Ethnicity in American Literature. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992.

Pula, James S. Polish Americans: An Ethnic Community. New York: Twayne, 1995.

Silverman, Deborah Anders. Polish-American Folklore. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

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Wikipedia: Polish American
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Polish American
 United States
Blank300.png
Kazimierz Pulaski.jpgThaddeus Kosciuszko.jpgHarryMWarner.JPG
Martha Stewart.jpgPolaNegri(closeup).jpgMike Krzyzewski - basketball coach.jpg
Kazimierz Pułaski • Tadeusz Kościuszko • Harry Warner •
Martha Stewart • Pola Negri • Mike Krzyzewski
Total population
10,000,000
3% of U.S. population
Regions with significant populations
United States Northeastern United States
United States Midwestern United States
Languages

American English • Polish
Religion

Roman Catholic • Protestant  • Judaism
Eastern Orthodox

A Polish American (Polish: Amerykanin polskiego pochodzenia), is a citizen of the United States of Polish descent. There are an estimated 9-10 million Polish Americans, representing about 3.2% of the population of the United States.

The first Poles in North America arrived in the Virginia Colony in 1608. Early Polish immigrants of note included Jacob Sodowski, Kazimierz Pułaski and Tadeusz Kościuszko, who were active in America around the time of the Revolutionary War. Overall, more than one million Poles immigrated to the United States, primarily during the late 19th and early 20th century. Exact immigration numbers are unknown. Due to the partitions of Poland, the Polish state did not exist at the time, when the precursor to the Immigration and Naturalization Service classified immigrants, according to country of origin, rather than to ethnicity. In particular, the three partitions gave rise to the terms Russian, German and Austrian Poles, as seen in the context of Polish immigration to the United States.

According to the 2000 United States Census, 667,414 Americans of age 5 years and older, reported Polish as the language spoken at home, which is about 1.4% of the census groups who speak a language other than English or 0.25% of the U.S. population.

Contents

History

Early settlers

The first Poles in North America came to the Jamestown Settlement in the Virginia Colony in 1608, twelve years before the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts.[1] These early settlers were brought as skilled artisans by the English soldier–adventurer Captain John Smith, and included a glass blower, a pitch and tar maker, a soap maker and a timberman.[1] These skills were vital to the new settlement, which was evidenced when the House of Burgesses met in 1619. During their deliberations, the House excluded the Polish community and threatened their rights. In reaction, the Poles launched the first recorded strike in the New World.[2] In need of their industries, the House of Burgesses extended the "rights of Englishmen" to the Poles (which included some East Prussians.) As a result, the Poles established the first bilingual schools in the New World, teaching both Polish and English, which later would be expanded to include Latin and German.[2] The political and economic power of the Polish community declined, however, with the increased colonial warfare with Native Americans.[2]

Age of Revolution

Tadeusz Kościuszko monument in Kosciuszko Park, Lincoln Village neighborhood, on the South Side of Milwaukee

Later Polish immigrants included Jacob Sadowski, who in 1770, settled in New York with his sons — the first Europeans to penetrate as far as Kentucky. It is said that Sandusky, Ohio, was named after him.[3] As the State of Poland entirely lost its independence at the end of the 18th century due to military partitions by foreign powers, Polish patriots, among them Kazimierz Pułaski and Tadeusz Kościuszko, left for America to fight for American Independence.

Kazimierz Pułaski served as Brigadier-general in the Continental Army and commanded its cavalry.[1] He saved General George Washington's army at the Battle of Brandywine and died leading a cavalry charge at the Battle of Savannah, aged 31.[1] Pułaski later become known as the "father of American cavalry".[1] He is also commemorated in Casimir Pulaski Day and the Pulaski Day Parade.

Kościuszko was a professional military officer who served in the Continental Army in 1776 and was instrumental in the victories at the Battle of Saratoga and West Point.[1] He led the failed Polish insurrection against Russia which ended with the Partition of Poland in 1795.[1] Pułaski and Kościuszko both have statues in Washington, D.C..[1]

Post-American Revolution

During the Partition of Poland (1795–1918), the Polish nation was forced to define itself as a disjointed and oppressed minority within three neighboring empires: Russian, Prussian and Austrian. The Polonia community in the United States, however, was founded on a unified national culture and society. Consequently, it assumed the place and moral role of the fourth province.[4]

The largest wave of Polish immigration to America occurred in the early 20th century. Officially, more than 1.5 million Polish immigrants were processed at Ellis Island, between 1899 and 1931. In addition, many Polish immigrants arrived at the port of Baltimore. The actual numbers of ethnically Polish arrivals at that time would be difficult to estimate due to prolonged occupation of Poland by neighboring states, with total loss of its international status. Similar circumstances developed in the following decades: during the Nazi German occupation of Poland in World War II; and further, in the communist period, under the Soviet military and political dominance with re-drawn national borders.[4]

Between 1870 and 1914, more than 3.6 million people departed from Polish territories (of whom 2.6 arrived in the U.S.)[5] Serfdom was abolished in Prussia in 1808, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1848 and in Czarist Russia, in 1861. In the late 19th century, the beginnings of industrialization, commercial agriculture and a population boom, that exhausted available land, transformed Polish peasant-farmers into migrant-laborers. Racial discrimination and unemployment drove them to emigrate.[6]

Initially, the Polish emigrants to America came mainly from the German part of the partitioned Poland, where they were targeted by Bismarck's official policy of anti-Catholic Kulturkampf. Only after 1900, the Prussian Poles were outnumbered by immigrants from Austrian and Russian Poland.

Polish immigrants working on the farm, 1909.

Also, the Russian section of the partition, Congress Poland, was undergoing considerable industrialization, particularly the textile capital of Łódź, the Manchester of Imperial Russia and the iron-foundries of Piotrków Trybunalski. The decline of these areas, after the Russo-Japanese War and the 1905 Russian Revolution, led to a mass exodus of laborers, first to Germany, Denmark and France, then eventually to the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Argentina. At its peak, in 1912-1913, annual emigration to the U.S., from the Polish provinces of the Russian Empire, exceeded 112,345 (including large numbers of Jews, Lithuanians and Belarusians).[7]

In the Polish provinces of Austrian Galicia, chiefly rural, but with laborers in the mines and factories of Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia and Lower Austria, land shortages, crop failures and the loosening of travel restrictions led to another exodus, mainly to Germany, Austria proper, France and the United States.[8] The 1910 United States Census recorded more than 900,000 new immigrants, who spoke Polish.[9]

According to the 2000 United States Census, 667,414 Americans of age 5 years and older, reported Polish as the language spoken at home, which is about 1.4% of people who speak languages other than English or 0.25% of the U.S. population.

Occupations

Polish-American grocery, 1922, Detroit, Michigan.

Lopata (1976) argues that Poles differed from most ethnics in America, in several ways. First, they did not plan to remain permanently and become "Americanized." Instead, they came temporarily, to earn money, invest, and wait for the right opportunity to return. Their intention was to ensure for themselves a desirable social status in the old world. However, many of the temporary migrants had decided to become permanent Americans.

Following World War I, the reborn Polish state began the process of economic recovery and many Poles tried to return. Since all the ills of life in Poland could be blamed on foreign occupation, the migrants did not resent the Polish upper classes. Their relation with the mother country was generally more positive than among migrants of other European countries. It is estimated that 30% of the Polish emigrants from lands occupied by the Russian Empire returned home. The return rate for non-Jews was closer to 50-60%. More than two-thirds of emigrants from Polish Galicia (freed from under the Austrian occupation) also returned.[10][11]

American employers considered Polish immigrants better suited than Italians, for arduous manual labor in coal-mines, slaughterhouses and steel mills, particularly in the primary stages of steel manufacture. Consequently, Polish migrants were recruited for work in the coal mines of Pennsylvania and the heavy industries (steel mills, iron foundries, slaughterhouses, oil and sugar refineries), of the Great Lakes cities of Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Buffalo, Milwaukee and Cleveland.

Polish communities as part of urban America

The Gateway Theatre, seat of the Copernicus Foundation, in Jefferson Park, Chicago. The Baroque spire is modeled on the Royal Castle, Warsaw.
Bobak's Polish supermarket in Chicago.
Greenpoint, Brooklyn, considered the center of New York City's Little Poland.

The vast majority of Polish immigrants settled in urban areas, attracted by jobs in industry. The minority, by some estimates, only ten percent, settled in rural areas.

One of the most notable of the urban Polish American communities is in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. The Almanac of American Politics 2004 states that "Even today, in Archer Heights (a neighborhood of Chicago), you can scarcely go a block without hearing someone speaking Polish."

There are about 10 million Americans of Polish descent. Chicago bills itself as the largest Polish city outside of Poland, with approximately 185,000 Polish language speakers.[12] The influence of Chicago's Polish community is demonstrated by the numerous Polish-American organizations: the Polish Museum of America, Polish American Association, Polish American Congress, Polish National Alliance, Polish Falcons and the Polish Highlanders Alliance of North America. In addition, Illinois has more than one million people that are of Polish descent, the third largest ethnic group after the German and Irish Americans.

Chicago's Polish community is concentrated along the city's Northwest and Southwest Sides, along Milwaukee and Archer Avenues, respectively. Chicago's Taste of Polonia festival is celebrated at the Copernicus Foundation, in Jefferson Park, every Labor Day weekend. Nearly 3 million people of Polish descent live in the area between Chicago and Detroit, including Northern Indiana, a part of the Chicago metropolitan area.

Further north, along Lake Michigan's coast, Milwaukee's Polish population has always been overshadowed by the city's more prominent German inhabitants. Nevertheless, the city's once numerous Polish community built a number of magnificent Polish Cathedrals, among them the magnificent Basilica of St. Josaphat and St. Stanislaus Catholic Church. Many Polish residents and businesses are still located in the Lincoln Village neighborhood. The city is also home to Polish Fest, the largest Polish festival in the United States, where Polish Americans from all over Wisconsin and nearby Chicago, come to celebrate Polish Culture, through music, food and entertainment.[13]

Michigan's Polish population of more than 850,000, is third, behind that of New York and Illinois. Polish Americans make up 8.6% of Michigan's total population. The city of Detroit had a very large Polish community, which historically settled in Poletown and Hamtramck. Poletown was cleared of residents, to make way for the General Motors Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly plant. Much of Hamtramck's Polish population moved on to the suburbs and have been replaced by Arab American and African American citizens, in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Polish influence is still felt throughout the entire Metro Detroit area, especially the suburb of Wyandotte, which is slowly emerging as the major center of Polish American activities in the state. An increase in new immigration from Poland is helping to bolster the parish community of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and a host of Polish American civic organizations, located within the city of Wyandotte. Also, the Detroit suburb of Troy is home to the American Polish Cultural Center, where the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame has over 200 artifacts on display from over 100 inductees, including Stan Musial and Mike Krzyzewski.[14]

The city of Cleveland, Ohio has a large Polish community, especially in historic Slavic Village, as part of its Warszawa Section. Poles from this part of Cleveland migrated to the suburbs, such as Garfield Heights, Parma and Seven Hills. The more affluent of Cleveland's Polish community live in Brecksville, Independence and Broadview Heights. Many of these Poles return to their Polish roots, by attending masses at St. Stanislaus Church, on East 65th Street and Baxter Avenue. Poles in Cleveland celebrate the annual Harvest Festival, which is usually held at the end of August. It features polka music, Polish food and all things Polish. Cleveland's other Polish section is in Tremont, located on Cleveland's west side. The home parishs are St. John Cantius and St. John Kanty. They also host Polish celebratory events in Cleveland.

Poles, in Cleveland, were instrumental in forming the Third Federal Savings and Loan, in 1938. After seeing fellow Poles discriminated against by Cleveland's banks, Ben Stefanski formed Third Federal. Today the Stefanski family still controls the bank. Unlike Cleveland's KeyBank and National City Corp., which have their headquarters in Downtown Cleveland, Third Federal is on Broadway Avenue in the Slavic Village neighborhood. Third Federal Savings and Loan is in the top 25 saving and loan institutions in the United States. In 2003, they acquired a Florida banking company and have branches in Florida and Ohio.

Other industrial cities, with major Polish communities, include: Buffalo, New York, a city whose Polish neighborhood dispersed into the suburbs and became integrated; Philadelphia, Columbus, Ohio, Boston, Baltimore, New Britain, Connecticut, Portland, Oregon, Minneapolis, Rochester, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Duluth, Minnesota. Despite the lack of new large-scale Polish immigration, some cities are emerging with strong Polish American communities. South Bend, Indiana, has a large Polish population for a mid-sized city. Milwaukee and Denver experienced major increases in their Polish populations, during the last 10 years. There is also a tendency among Poles from Chicago and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to move to Florida.

Luzerne County, in northeastern Pennsylvania, is the only county in the United States, where a plurality of residents state their ancestry as Polish. (See: Maps of American ancestries) This includes the cities of Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Hazelton and Nanticoke. Many of the immigrants were drawn to this area, because of the mining of Anthracite coal in the region. Polish influences are still common today, in the form of church bazaars, polka music and polish cuisine. It is widely believed that Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, is one of the largest growing Polish communities in the United States.

In addition, New Jersey also boasts a large Polish population, primarily in the North. Wallington and Garfield are two towns, that combined have a population of 41,000 residents. Of those, roughly 12,000 are Polish. Out of all of Bergen County, roughly 7% consists of Polish-Americans. In addition, towns like Elmwood Park, Clifton and East Rutherford, all have decent Polish populations.

Wisconsin, Minnesota and Nebraska represent a different type of settlement with significant Polish communities, having been established in rural areas. Historian John Radzilowski estimates that up to a third of Poles in Minnesota settled in rural areas, where they established 40 communities, that were often centered around a Catholic church.[15] Most of these settlers came from the Polish lands that had been taken by Prussia during the Partitions, with a sub-group coming from Silesia. The Kaszub minority, from Poland's Baltic coast, was also strongly represented among Polish immigrants to Minnesota, most notably in Winona.

Religion

Most immigrants to North America from the Polish lands, who considered themselves Polish in ethnic or national orientation, were Roman Catholic. These people were responsible for building the Polish Cathedrals, found in the Great Lakes and New England regions and the Mid-Atlantic States. Poles, in the Chicago metropolitan area, founded the following churches: St. Stanislaus Kostka, Holy Trinity, St. John Cantius, Holy Innocents, St. Helen, St. Fidelis, St. Mary of the Angels, St. Hedwig, St. Josaphat, St. Francis of Assisi (Humboldt Park), St. Hyacinth Basilica, St. Wenceslaus, Immaculate Heart of Mary, St. Stanislaus B&M, St. James (Cragin), St. Ladislaus, St. Constance, St. Mary of Perpetual Help, St. Barbara, SS. Peter & Paul, St. Joseph (Back of the Yards), Five Holy Martyrs, St. Pancratius, St. Bruno, St. Camillus, St. Michael (South Chicago), Immaculate Conception (South Chicago), St. Mary Magdalene, St. Bronislava, St. Thecla, St. Florian, St. Mary of Częstochowa (Cicero), St. Simeon (Bellwood), St. Blase (Summit), St. Glowienke (Downers Grove), St. Isidore the Farmer (Blue Island), St. Andrew the Apostle (Calumet City) and St. John the Baptist (Harvey), as well as St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital, on the Near West Side.

Poles established approximately 50 Roman Catholic parishes in Minnesota. Among them: St. Wojciech (Adalbert) and St. Kazimierz (Casimir) in St. Paul; Holy Cross, St. Philip, St. Hegwig (Jadwiga Slaska) and All Saints, in Minneapolis; Our Lady Star of the Sea and St. Casimir's in Duluth; and St. Kazimierz (Casimir) and St. Stanislaw Kostka in Winona. A few of the parishes of particular note, founded by Poles elsewhere in Minnesota, include: St. John Cantius in Wilno; St. Jozef (Joseph) in Browerville; St. John in Baptist in Virginia; St. Mary in Częstochowa; St. Wojciech (Adalbert) in Silver Lake; Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Opole; Our Lady of Lourdes in Little Falls; St. Stanislaus Kostka in Sobieski; and St. Isadore in Moran Township.

To assert their independence from the Irish American-dominated Catholic Church, a group of Roman Catholics of Polish descent broke away, to form the Polish National Catholic Church, which is headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Poland is also home to followers of Protestantism and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Small groups of both of these groups also immigrated to the United States. One of the most celebrated painters of religious icons in North America today is a Polish American Eastern Orthodox priest, Fr. Theodore Jurewicz, who singlehandedly painted New Gračanica Monastery in Third Lake, Illinois, over the span of three years[16].

A small group of Lipka Tatars, origin from the Białystok region, helped co-found the first Muslim organization in Brooklyn, New York, in 1907 and later, a mosque, which is still in use.[17]

Polish American culture

The front page of New York City's Nowy Dziennik.

Cultural contributions of Polish Americans cover a broad spectrum including media, publishing industry, religious presence, artistic life, cuisine and museums as well as festivals.

Media

Among the most notable Polish American media groups are: the Hippocrene Books (founded by a Polish American George Blagowidow); TVP Polonia; Polsat 2 International; TVN International; Polvision; TV4U New York; WPNA Radio Chicago; RadioPol (Polish Radio Stations Online); the Chicago Polish Downtown; Polonia Today and the Warsaw Voice. There are also Polish American newspapers and magazines, such as the Dziennik Zwiazkowy in Chicago, the Nowy Dziennik in New York and Tygodnik Polski and Polish Times in Detroit, not to mention the Ohio University Press Series in Polish American Studies,[18] Przeglad Polski Online, Polish American Journal,[19] and the Polish News Online,[20] among others..

Cultural identity

Even in long-integrated communities, remnants of Polish culture and vocabulary remain. Roman Catholic churches built by Polish American communities often serve as a vehicle for cultural retention.

During the 1950s-1970s, the Polish wedding was often an all-day event. Traditional Polish weddings in Chicagoland, in areas such as the southeast side of Chicago, inner suburbs like Calumet City and Hegewisch, and Northwest Indiana suburbs, such as Whiting, Hammond and East Chicago, always occurred on Saturdays. The receptions were typically held in a large hall, such as a VFW Hall. A polka band of drums, a singer, accordion, and trumpet, entertained the people, as they danced traditional dances, such as the oberek, "Polish Hop" and the waltz. Always an important part of Slavic culture, food played a very important role. The musicians, as well as the guests, were expected to enjoy ample amounts of both food and drink. Foods, such as Polish sausage, sauerkraut, pierogi and kluski were common. Common drinks were beer, screwdrivers and highballs. Many popular Polish foods became a fixture in the American cuisine of today, including kiełbasa (Polish sausage), babka cake, kaszanka (kasanzka) and pierogi, among many.

Polish American cultural groups include the White Eagle Lodge, Polish American Arts Association and the Polish Falcons. The Polish community was long the subject of anti-Polish sentiment in America. The word, Polack, has become a racial slur. Much of this prejudice was associated with anti-Catholicism and early 20th century worries, about being overrun by Eastern European immigrants.

Among the many Polish American writers are a number of poets, such as Phil Boiarski, Hedwig Gorski, John Guzlowski, John Minczeski, Linda Nemec Foster, Leonard Kress (poet and translator), Cecilia Woloch, Kim Kikel and Mark Pawlak (poet and editor), along with novelists Leslie Pietrzyk, Thad Rutkowski, Suzanne Strempek Shea[21] and others.

Museums

The Polish Museum of America in Chicago.

Among the best known Polish American museums are the Polish Museum of America in Chicago's old Polish Downtown; founded in 1935, the largest ethnic museum in the U.S. sponsored by the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America. The Museum Library ranks as one of the best, outside of Poland. Equally ambitious is the Polish American Museum located in Port Washington, New York, founded in 1977. It features displays of folk art, costumes, historical artifacts and paintings, as well as bilingual research library with particular focus on achievements of the people of Polish heritage in America.[22][23] There is also the Polish Museum of Winona, known as the Polish Cultural Institute of Winona, Minnesota.

Festivals

There are a number of unique festivals, street parties and parades held by the Polish American community. The Polish Fest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is a popular annual festival, takes place at the Henry Maier Festival Park. It is also the largest Polish festival in the United States. It attracts Polish Americans from all over Wisconsin and nearby Chicago, who come to celebrate Polish culture through music, food and entertainment. There's also the Taste of Polonia festival held in Chicago every Labor Day weekend since 1979 at the Copernicus Cultural and Civic Center in the Jefferson Park area. One of the newest and most ambitious festivals is the Seattle Polish Film Festival organized in conjunction with the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, Poland. And last, but not least, there's the Pierogi Fest in Whiting, Indiana with many more attractions other than Polish pierogi, and the Wisconsin Dells Polish Fest.[21]

The Polish and Polish-American contribution to American culture

Polish-Americans have influenced American culture in many ways. Most prominent among these is through the inclusion of traditional Polish cuisine such as pierogi, kielbasa, golabki. Some of these polish foods were tweaked and reinvented in the new American environment such as Chicago's Maxwell Street Polish Sausage.

Polish Americans have also contributed to altering the physical landscape of the cities they have inhabited, erecting monuments to Polish-American heroes such as Kosciuszko and Pulaski. Distinctive cultural phenomena such as Polish flats became part and parcel of the areas where Polish settlement occurred.

Poles cultural ties to Roman Catholicism has also influenced the adoption of such distinctive rites like the blessing of the baskets before Easter in many areas of the United States by fellow Roman Catholics.

Polish American communities

Main article: List of U.S. cities with large Polish American populations

Polish-Americans comprise a multigenerational ethnic community. Names listed in this category include: Polish-American enclaves with cultural organizations; media outlets; and broadly defined community resources.[24][25]

Polish Americans by state totals

Distribution of Polish Americans, according to the 2000 United States Census.

According to the 2000 United States Census, the U.S. states with the largest numbers of self-reported Poles and Americans of Polish ancestry are:

...

Polish Americans by percentage of the total population

Notable Polish Americans

Main article: List of Polish Americans

See also

Nuvola USA flag alternative.svg United States portal
Nuvola Polish flag.svg Poland portal

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Richmond, p 72
  2. ^ a b c Seidner, Stanley S. (1976). In Quest of a Cultural Identity: An Inquiry for the Polish Community. New York, New York: IUME, Teachers College, Columbia University. ISBN ERIC ED167674. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED167674&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED167674. 
  3. ^ American Pioneer, I, 119; II, 325, cited by Wikisource-logo.svg "Poles in the United States". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Poles_in_the_United_States. 
  4. ^ a b Helena Znaniecka Lopata, Mary Patrice Erdmans, Polish Americans Published by Transaction Publishers, 1994, New Brunswick, New Jersey. 294 pages. ISBN 1560001003
  5. ^ Aleksader Gieysztor, History of Poland (Warsaw: Polish Scientific Publishers, 1968) Pg. 585
  6. ^ Seidner, Stanley S. (1976). In Quest of a Cultural Identity: An Inquiry for the Polish Community. New York, New York: IUME, Teachers College, Columbia University. ISBN ERIC ED167674. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED167674&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED167674.
  7. ^ Seidner, Stanley S. (1976). In Quest of a Cultural Identity: An Inquiry for the Polish Community. New York, New York: IUME, Teachers College, Columbia University. ISBN ERIC ED167674. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED167674&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED167674.
  8. ^ Caroline Golab, Immigrant Destinations (Temple University Press: Philadelphia, 1977) Pg. 94
  9. ^ Immigration...Polish/Russian: The Nation of Polonia
  10. ^ Stanley S. (1976). In Quest of a Cultural Identity: An Inquiry for the Polish Community. New York, New York: IUME, Teachers College, Columbia University. ISBN ERIC ED167674.
  11. ^ Golab, Immigrant Destinations Pg. 86-7, 99.[verification needed]
  12. ^ The Polish Community in Metro Chicago:A Community Profile of Strengths and Needs, A Census 2000 Report, published by the Polish American Association June 2004, p. 18
  13. ^ Gauper, Beth (2007-05-27). "Polish for a day". MidwestWeekends.com. St. Paul Pioneer Press. http://www.midwestweekends.com/plan_a_trip/history_heritage/heritage_travel/polish_fest_milwaukee.html. Retrieved 2008-01-11. 
  14. ^ "National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame Artifacts on Display at the American Polish Cultural Center". National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame. http://www.polishsportshof.com/ccpresense.html. Retrieved 2009-02-23. 
  15. ^ John Radzilowski. Poles in Minnesota. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 2005. p. 6
  16. ^ Serbian Monastery of New Gracanica - History
  17. ^ Ramadan - TIME
  18. ^ http://www.ohioswallow.com/
  19. ^ Polish American Journal http://www.polamjournal.com/
  20. ^ http://www.polishnews.com/
  21. ^ a b Polish American Historical Association http://www.polishamericanstudies.org/resources.html
  22. ^ Smithsonian Magazine, Polish American Museum at Smithsonian.com
  23. ^ James Barron, the New York Times, If you're thinking of living in:; Port Washington Published: August 8, 1982
  24. ^ "Polish ancestry by city". Epodunk.com. 2000 United States Census. http://www.epodunk.com/ancestry/Polish.html. Retrieved 2009-02-20. 
  25. ^ Open directory project, Polish-American (61) Selected regional centres.

Bibliography

  • Anders-Silverman, Deborah. Polish-American Folklore. U of Illinois Press, 2000.
  • Andrzej Brozek. Polish Americans, 1854-1939 (1985)
  • John J. Bukowczyk. And My Children Did Not Know Me: A History of the Polish-Americans (1987)
  • John J. Bukowczyk, ed. Polish Americans and Their History. U of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.
  • Erdmans, Mary Patrice. "Opposite Poles: Immigrants and Ethnics in Polish Chicago, 1976-1990" (1998) Penn State Press.
  • William J. Galush. For More Than Bread: Community and Identity in American Polonia, 1880-1940, (East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press; 313 pages; 2007). Explores competing versions of Polish identity in Polish-American communities during the period.
  • Thomas S. Gladsky; Princes, Peasants and Other Polish Selves: Ethnicity in American Literature. (1992), ISBN 0870237756. online version
  • David J. Jackson; "Just Another Day in a New Polonia: Contemporary Polish-American Polka Music." Popular Music and Society. 26#4 (2003) pp: 529+. online version
  • Helena Znaniecka Lopata; Polish Americans: Status Competition in an Ethnic Community (1976), ISBN 0136864368. online version
  • Theresa Kurk Mcginley; "Embattled Polonia Polish-Americans and World War II." East European Quarterly. 37#3 2003. pp: 325+. online version
  • Karen Majewski. Traitors and True Poles: Narrating a Polish-American Identity, 1880-1939, (2003) - 248 pages
  • Jacek Nowakowski. Polish-American Ways (1989)
  • Pula, James S. Polish Americans: An Ethnic Community (1995)
  • Pula, James S. "Image, Status, Mobility and Integration in American Society: The Polish Experience." Journal of American Ethnic History 16 (1996): 74-95.
  • Richmond, Yale (1995). From Da to Yes: understanding the East Europeans. Intercultural Press. ISBN 1877864307, ISBN 9781877864308. http://books.google.com/books?id=2Y8GNIp42ysC&printsec=frontcover. 
  • Charles Sadler, "Pro-Soviet Polish Americans: Oskar Lange and Russia's Friends in the Polonia, 1941-1945", Polish Review 22, (1977), 4: 30+
  • Stanley S. Seidner, (1976). In Quest of a Cultural Identity: An Inquiry for the Polish Community. New York, New York: IUME, Teachers College, Columbia University. ISBN ERIC ED167674. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED167674&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED167674.
  • Deborah Silverman. Polish-American Folklore (2000)
  • William Thomas and Florian Znaniecki. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. 2 vol 1920, ISBN 0252010922 (1984 printing). ; famous classic online edition
  • Joseph A. Wytrwal. Poles in American History and Tradition (1969),
  • Joseph L. Zurawski, Polish American History and Culture: A Classified Bibliography (1975)
  • Adam A. Zych, The Living Situation of Elderly Americans of Polish Descent in Chicago (2005)

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